Why is everyone talking about Trust? Again.

With the rise of remote work and digital communication, trust within the workplace is pivotal. The buzz around trust at this year's Davos and insights from McKinsey's Biljana Cvetanovski highlight its significance in business performance. Trust is more than a moral choice; it's a strategic one. But where do you start?

What is Trust?

Trust is a multifaceted concept, embodying elements of belief, reliability, responsibility, and expectation. Its intangible nature makes it challenging to quantify, yet its impact on business success is undeniable. It is distinguished from psychological safety by its focus on actions and outcomes rather than the absence of fear. According to Edelman’s Trust Barometer, trust is deemed the "ultimate currency," essential for an organization's ability to operate effectively, take responsible risks, and recover from mistakes.

Measuring Trust

Let’s start with the hard things first. How do you actually measure trust?

• Purchase a model: Blakey’s Nine Habits model, for example, translates the concept of trust into behaviors which leaders and workers can demonstrate. His method suggests trust is built by demonstrating ability, integrity, and benevolence. Beneath each of these three pillars are three habits. These habits are tracked, indicating where trust is low, and providing a benchmark for improving trust metrics.
• Build your own: You (or a consultant) can conduct exercises focused on identifying and implementing specific actions that demonstrate the organization’s commitment to improving the employee and customer experience in relation to trust. This could be in the form of a Trust Manifesto, outlining key trust principles unique to your organization and action commitments to improve trust for the rest of the year. This then acts as a generator of metrics and a benchmark for improving metrics.

Strategies for Building Trust

Building on the foundational understanding that trust is crucial for business, there are a number of directions to develop strategically for businesses wishing to foster more trust in their organization:

• Open Communication: Creating channels for open dialogue is crucial. Communication, after all, is two-way. This could be a monthly update from each manager to their team about intended goals, successes, and failures, as well as a clear feedback mechanism for staff to add support or criticism. This transparency not only builds trust but also brings valuable ideas and concerns to the forefront.
• Show Vulnerability, especially in Leadership: Everyone makes mistakes. No one is correct all the time, and leaders should model human-centric models. Inspired by the work of Dr. John Blakey and Dr. Brené Brown, there is a growing expectation for the modern workforce for leaders to show that they are actually human, i.e., to show vulnerability. Admitting to challenges and displaying genuine humanity can significantly bolster trust among team members. See servant and compassionate leadership models, and incorporate some elements of these into their leadership and development style.
• Demonstrate Transparency: Being transparent about companies' decisions and challenges builds trust across all organizational levels, helping employees understand the rationale behind decisions and align more closely with the company's goals. As a mirror of the micro-activities where managers provide updates to teams monthly, senior leadership should provide similar updates to the whole organization. Here it's important to note, no one reads reams of notes (less than 30% of you will have reached this far!) these notes should be no longer than a size of A4, and you can get creative. Could half of the page be an image, a model? Could the update be in the form of an animation, or a regular rap corner? Be creative, take it out of the box.
• Consistency is Key: Reliability and predictability in leadership behavior set a standard for the entire team, promoting a stable and trustworthy environment. This is very difficult, especially in relation to challenging or poor-performing team members, or indeed, to team members you are not particularly fond of, but one way to start is a principle agreement that each manager writes and makes for themselves on a base level of engagement with each team member (for example, I will respond to emails within 24 hours or else I will send a stock email saying x).
• Cultivate Empathy and Support: Genuine care for employees' well-being and professional growth significantly boosts trust and is associated with higher job satisfaction. Here we place things such as unconscious bias training, and those invitations from DEIB training that are focused on understanding different perspectives, exploring your own lens, and creating the conditions for belonging. Again, several learning interventions can be used. We have to think beyond the workshop and beyond the classroom setting.
• Delivering on Promises: Linked to consistency, actively fulfilling commitments to customers and employees alike is a foundational element of trust-building. Every manager should be able to answer the question: what is the promise of our organization? This is not the purpose, this is not the mission or vision. This is your commitment to your customers and your team.

Exercises to Build Out These Strategies

• Shared Experience: Design shared experiences, especially in solving problems collaboratively weekly, fortnightly, or monthly to break down barriers and build trust. Do not just wait for the annual retreat, it is much too infrequent. Do not rely on water cooler conversations or catchups on Monday about our weekend, or the children's raffle. Often these do not have the desired effect, because they are not intentional. Occasionally also they can be distracting when in the flow of work.
• Teach Transparent Communication: This could be in the form of workshops or other learning instruments, focused on improving communication skills, especially communicating in times of stress or communicating through conflict. Work on slowing down communication in order to make better and more concise statements are also important. Incorporating case studies to illustrate the tangible benefits of consistent and transparent communication is helpful. Also setting tangible exercises so people learn within the flow of work, e.g., using RAD for feedback.
• Devolved Decision Making: Demonstrate trust by devolving some decision-making along the organization. For example, it may be that no approval is needed on expenses over €200. Devolving a number of smaller decisions can work wonders for people's sense of being trusted.
• Quarterly Goals Setting Sessions: Connected to devolved decision-making. Teams coming together to collaboratively setting SMART goals for the quarter is another simple way to make an impact. Here teams come to understand how each person's role contributes to the overall whole, it helps align team efforts and builds a sense of shared purpose.
• Vulnerability-Based Activities: Activities encouraging leaders to share personal stories or challenges deepen trust, inspired by research into vulnerability and leadership. This is great in the form of internal TedX talks, which also allow people to practice public speaking.
• Consistency Challenges: A 30-day challenge where leaders and team members commit to daily actions that demonstrate reliability can reinforce the importance of consistency in building trust. This could be individual, or they could be collective and fun, such as walking challenges.
• Trust Measurement Exercises: With tools such as Blakey's Nine Habits model, teams can engage in exercises that assess and reflect on trust levels within the organization. This could involve surveys or discussions focused on the behaviors that contribute to a trusting environment, providing a benchmark for improvement. This is particularly key for having quantifiable data on trust within an organization.
• The Trust Manifesto: Conduct exercises focused on identifying and implementing specific actions that demonstrate the organization’s commitment to improving the employee and customer experience in relation to trust. This could be in the form of a Trust Manifesto, outlining key trust principles unique to your organization and action commitments to improve trust for the rest of the year. This then acts as a generator of metrics and a benchmark for improving metrics.

Note, it is not advisable to attempt all of these strategies at once. Go deep, not broad. Integrating just one of these strategies and exercises can significantly boost trust, team cohesion, productivity, and workplace harmony.

Understanding trust's complexity and proactively cultivating it empowers organizations to navigate modern business challenges with confidence and integrity.